Not my PSP…this video comes from CAG member Chakan.

Here’s a video of some actual gameplay of the PSP Go, thanks to THEXBOX360GAMER17.

No matter what your opinion is of this product, you gotta love that new game console smell. So what do you think? Is the PSP Go worth the price for now, or will you wait longer to get it (if you’ll get it at all)? I haven’t even seen it in person yet, but I do have an opinion about the concept.

The choice of upgrade seems to be mostly to do away with physical game media, and much like the GBA Micro to the GBA, sacrificing some features to achieve a smaller size. Most notably missing is the lack of UMD slot (as if the first video didn’t clue you in on that), so it’s really just for people focused on downloadable game content. There’s no other reason really to buy the PSP Go, because as a multimedia player it seems too expensive.  Get an iPod or some other good brand media player for your videos. Even with the built in 16GB of storage, the PSP Go is not a good value for just movies or music.

From the description of the first video, the PSP Go appears to have a bit of a heft in its feel, much like the old PSP-1000 which I currently have. Personally I like these kinds of gadgets to be a bit weighty, especially considering if the outside casing protects the inside parts well. The design of the PSP Go mimics the PSP-1000 the most. The face buttons of the PSP Go look a tad smaller than normal, but the D-pad and analog nub don’t seem to have changed at all.

I can’t really imagine Sony trying to sell this to people already into the PSP, because a switch to the PSP Go isn’t very convenient at all. It seems that it’s marketed towards people that don’t have a PSP yet, and even with them it would be hard to push the more expensive Go over the less expensive PSP-3000 because it has a larger library of PSP games available.

One thing I hope won’t happen from the PSP Go is that Sony would drop support for the original PSP. They already have dropped UMD movies and music (which I actually didn’t care about), but to drop UMD games they’ll be pissing off a lot of PSP owners. Sony had typically been one to experiment with new media formats and drop them quickly after they failed to catch on in general use. Their only successful efforts have been with Memory Stick and Blu-Ray formats, the ones that all Sony’s game systems support. I wouldn’t want to see Sony abandoning the UMD model a year from now.

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